Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.
When he woke, it was to the distinct feeling of pain. Muffled pain, clearly stifled by painkillers, but pain nonetheless.
That didn't stop Scott from opening his eyes slowly, scowling a little at the dim lighting in the room. It saved him a headache to go along with the rest of the pain, but it didn't make it particularly easy to determine where he was.
Although, really, there were very few options. Either he was in hospital, back home in the infirmary, or some third party had decided to take care of him. Scott knew which one he was hoping for.
"Is our sleeping beauty awake?"
The words were cliché, straight out of a bad kidnapping movie, and Scott rolled his eyes. Well, that was one option dismissed, at least. Potentially two, considering the owner of that voice's opinion on hospitals.
"Yes," he croaked, letting his head loll sideways until he could make out the hazy shape next to him. "Lights?"
"It's the middle of the night." The shape shifted slightly, and then there was a light touch on his shoulder. "How are you feeling?"
Scott huffed, and instantly regretted it as the action ignited the residual pain.
"Okay, stupid question." The hand rubbed his shoulder gently. "Do you remember what happened?"
Falling rocks.
A little girl.
Scott lunged to sit up, but his brother was clearly prepared for that because hands gripped his shoulders and kept him pinned to the bed.
"She's fine. Couple of bruises, but you kept her safe." Fingers dug into his shoulders almost painfully, keeping him from moving. "You, on the other hand, have more than a couple of bruises, and Grandma and Virgil will murder both of us if I let you move just yet."
Gordon spoke sense, but that didn't mean Scott had to like it. Still, his body thrummed with repressed pain and his second-youngest brother was apparently finding it entirely too easy to hold him down. He stopped fighting for the moment, knowing that Gordon wouldn't lie to him about the girl. Something else sparked at his brother's words, though.
"Virgil?"
"Out on another rescue," Gordon told him bluntly. "Alan went with him."
Alan? Scott eyed his present brother suspiciously. "Not you?"
"Well, Alan was hardly going to keep you in line if you woke up, was he?" The words were flippant, and Scott was admittedly still waking up from an unwilling nap, but something struck him as not right about Gordon's attitude.
He was too tired to try and parse it out the gentle way.
"Gordon."
"Scott," his brother mimicked. One hand left his shoulder, brushing lightly through his hair before returning to Gordon's side as his brother settled back down stiffly in the chair.
Stiffly?
Scott's eyes narrowed, as if that would help him see in the half-light. It didn't, but he didn't need to see to guess what was going on.
"How's your back?" he asked.
Gordon sighed. "It's fine, Scott," he said, although the way he was shifting in place made Scott doubt they had the same definition of 'fine'. "Just wasn't a fan of moving boulders so I'm taking it easy tonight."
Moving boulders. Scott closed his eyes as the implications of that washed over him, only for the other hand to leave his shoulder in favour of a finger jabbing him in the cheek.
"None of that," Gordon said sternly. "Virgil did most of the work."
"Virgil's not the one with a bad back," Scott muttered, peeling one eye open again to glare at his brother. He got another jab in the cheek for that and lazily shifted his head enough to snap at the offending finger.
Gordon whisked it out of range with a light laugh. A moment later, hands rested lightly on his arm, thumbs brushing bare skin gently.
"A bad back's not going to stop me saving my brother," the blond said firmly, just enough steel underlying his words to be at odds with his laugh. The thumbs didn't stop moving, rubbing light circles onto Scott's skin.
Scott wanted to argue. If it was anyone else, about anything else, he would have done. But Gordon's back was its own topic, with its own rules, and no matter how much he wanted to wrap his brother up in cotton wool to make sure he never hurt it again, they had an agreement in place. Gordon's back was Gordon's business. As long as he remained honest about how it affected him day to day, Scott wasn't allowed to try and control what he did.
No matter how much he hated the idea of something one day going wrong.
"I know," he sighed, swallowing back the protests. Gordon squeezed his arm lightly, in an acknowledgement that his brother knew it hurt him every time he couldn't stop him. "So, what happened to me?"
Safer waters it might not be, but the subject change sucked away the rest of the lingering tension in the room.
"Boulders don't make for a good massage, Scott," Gordon told him airily, before his voice hardened into something more serious. "You've got extensive bruising all over, and hairline fractures in three ribs."
Scott winced. That meant he was grounded for weeks.
He hated being grounded.
Gordon hadn't let go of his arm. His thumbs were still tracing circles on his skin, a pattern that was more soothing than it had any right to be.
"You should get some sleep," his brother told him quietly. "It's the middle of the night, you know."
"You said," Scott reminded him. "Why are you still up?" Gordon was strict with his sleep schedule, when rescues didn't interrupt it, and the middle of the night was an hour his brother didn't care to see outside of occasional trips to the kitchen for water.
The huff he got in response told him Gordon thought that a stupid question.
"Someone had to watch you," he pointed out. "Go to sleep, Scott." Then I can, was left unspoken, but Scott heard it loud and clear. Sneaky, manipulative little brother. "The others won't be back for hours."
Gordon would know better than him right now. Still, Scott didn't want to sleep so soon after regaining consciousness, even if he was weak enough that Gordon could overpower him with ease.
"I don't need watching," he protested. Gordon made a sound that was entirely disbelieving in response and he scowled. "You need to sleep." As if on cue, his brother yawned before letting out a disgruntled noise.
"I can stay awake a while longer," he insisted, but Scott rolled his eyes.
"Bed, Gordon," he insisted, trying to pull his arm away. Gordon didn't loosen his grip. "Gordon."
He half-expected to have his name mimicked back at him again, but this time that didn't happen. Instead, his brother sighed, a little sadly. Scott didn't like that sound at all.
"I'm not leaving you," his brother said, quiet but determined. "You can't make me." His grip on Scott's arm tightened, enough to puncture through the painkillers and get his arm complaining again in real time. "Not tonight, Scott."
Despite being fully capable of tight, crushing, squid hugs, Gordon wasn't particularly clingy all of the time. Alan would cling, Virgil would hover with the promise of bear hugs the moment he sensed something awry, and even John lurked in his own way, but Gordon was content to keep his own personal space unless he was particularly worried – or mischievous.
Gordon didn't get clingy like this unless there was something else going on in his head, and Scott knew from experience that there really wasn't any way of getting the squid to let go once his tentacles had grasped on. With Virgil and Alan both out on another rescue, and John as ever up in orbit, there was no way Scott could shake him.
If he was honest, he didn't want to, either.
"Fine," he accepted. "But you need to sleep."
"Scott-"
He didn't wait for the complaints, twisting his arm around until he had hold of his brother's wrist. It hurt, but it did its job of silencing his brother. If there was more light, Scott suspected he'd see sharp amber eyes watching him with a mix of confusion and calculation.
"Sleep here," he said, giving a light tug. The infirmary bed was big enough for both of them, a necessity given the entire family's tendency to crawl into each other's beds at the first sign of a nightmare. Bruising and hairline fractures would survive a bedfellow.
It wouldn't be the first time. Injuries and nightmares came hand-in-hand.
The grip on his arm slackened, then fell away entirely. Gordon didn't pull away from him, though, and Scott kept his grip as his brother moved.
Sheets rustled and shifted, exposing him to a rush of cooler air that raised goosebumps all over his body before the mattress dipped and a warm body pressed up against his.
While there was space for two, in theory, Scott had been placed in the middle of the bed, leaving Gordon to squish himself in the smaller gap between his body and the edge of the bed. Instinctively, Scott tried to shift over, but arms and legs wrapped around him loosely enough not to agitate his bruising, but firmly enough to keep him pinned in place.
"I'm fine," Gordon said, breath tickling Scott's neck. Hair brushed against his jaw, smelling faintly of chlorine as always. "Plenty of room." Scott doubted that, but his brother's hold on him was firm enough that he couldn't move anyway. "Don't forget to get some sleep, Scott." There was a yawn near his ear, punctuating Gordon's words. "Night."
Gordon was good at falling asleep. Not like Alan – teenagerhood and adrenaline crashing the youngest Tracy where he stood on multiple occasions – but more befitting the military lifestyle he'd once led. There, sleep was precious, and being able to nod off at the drop of a hat was a vital skill. Scott had long since lost that to sleepless nights of paperwork and what-ifs, but somehow, despite everything, Gordon could still do it. The breath tickling his neck sank into something slow and even almost immediately.
His own personal lullaby.
Scott had no intentions of falling back asleep again, but Gordon hadn't left him with a lot of options. The warmth of his brother soothed the pain, and the breathing against his neck soothed his mind.
It didn't take long for his eyelids to slide shut again.
Wrote a little birthday present for myself (it's gone midnight here at the time of posting; it counts!) - good old Military Bros, because I can.
Thanks for reading!
Tsari
